RECORD-BREAKING ANIMATION OF THE YEAR “MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU”
Cinema Writer/Film Critic Efe TEKSOY; wrote the adventure and comedy animation “MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU” for America’s Los Angeles based Internet Newspaper @alaturkanews.
BIGGEST ANIMATION SERIES IN HISTORY
With a budget of $80 million from Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment, Minions: The Rise of Gru became the highest-grossing animated film of 2022, surpassing $800 million at the global box office. The fifth film in the series, which grossed $3.7 billion worldwide as the biggest global animated series in history, this production continues the adventure from where it left off and transports the audience to a period of the 1970s, full of fashion, style and music references. Beginning with Despicable Me in 2010, the iconic Minions won the hearts of all ages as cinema’s craziest characters, becoming a humorous symbol of today’s pop-culture and a global cultural phenomenon. The first film in the series not directed by the French animator Pierre Coffin, known for being the voice of the minions, this production is directed by BAFTA-nominated animator Kyle Balda and co-directed by Brad Ableson and Jonathan del Val. Due to the approximately 2,5 year gap between the first trailer and the release date, it is the longest advertised animated film in the history of cinema. Michelle Yeoh, who plays the bond girl in the 1997 movie Tomorrow Never Dies, voices the character of Master Chow in the animation, which starts with a reference to the classic opening credits of James Bond.
The funk soundtrack of Minions: The Rise of Gru was made by legendary music producer Jack Antonoff (vocalist of rock band Bleachers), Grammy Award-winning 2022 Producer of the Year. The movie’s dizzying music album with great effort; It features funk, disco and soul classics, as well as brand new versions of the greatest hits of the 1970s by today’s biggest artists. Bleachers’ version of John Lennon‘s 1970 song ‘Instant Karma!’ also features Simon & Garfunkel in different performances of the 1970s favorite, the classic ‘Cecilia’. Emphasizing the importance and value of friendship and companionship, the animation gives positive messages in its sub-text that will guide the young audience to the right path. Thus, we see that; Although the character Gru aims to rise in the world of evil, he actually finds himself helping his friends and getting support from them. The German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, considered one of the founding figures of modern Western philosophy and one of the important thinkers of German Idealism, comes to mind here. In The Phenomenology of Spirit book, Hegel says that evil is actually the look that sees evil wherever he looks. Thanks to the help of Gru’s character to his friends; We see it reflected as a symbol of love, compassion and benevolence. The great Russian writer and thinker Lev Tolstoy, in his book, “What Men Live By”, which is one of his most important works that appeals to the spiritual world of the reader, puts forward a new understanding of morality in works that reflect real life, by praising human values and qualities. The character named Mihail, who is learned to be an Angel at the end of the book; (to the question of what a person lives with) states that he learned that he lived with love, not worrying about himself. Like the character Gru in the movie (just like the Mihail), he goes through certain stages and difficulties and learns that what matters in the end is love. The character Gru steals the talismanic object The Zodiac Stone, which endows its owner with incredible powers, in order to join the team of villains called Vicious 6. Thus, Gru attracts the attention of Vicious 6 and communication begins between them. Karl Marx, in his popular analysis of the universe of commodities, mentions that relations between people appear in the guise of relations between objects. We see that the meta here also establishes relations as the Zodiac stone. Minions‘ idiosyncratic sarcastic humor and unexpected comedic techniques, accompanied by subtle pop culture references, spread to large audiences and reached a large fan base. In the Minions humor here, we encounter an epistemological version of the buffoon doing the opposite of his master.
TOPIC OF ANIMATION
Growing up in the suburbs in the mid-1970s with trendy hair and blue jeans, 12-year-old Gru aims to become one of history’s biggest villains. A fan of the villainous group known as the Vicious 6, the teen plots to become bad enough to join the six, enlisting the support of their loyal followers and mayhem-inducing Minions. Young Gru meets with them to become a member of the Vicious 6. But the meeting doesn’t go well and he suddenly finds himself their mortal enemy.
Stars; Steve Carell (voice), Taraji P. Henson (voice), Jean Claude Van Damme (voice), Lucy Lawless (voice), Dolp Lundgren (voice), Danny Traji (voice), Russell Brand (voice), Michelle Yeoh (voice), Julie Andrews (voice), and Alan Arkin (voice).
MINIONS: THE RISE OF GRU
Unique to the Illumination company; Minions: The Rise of Gru, with subversive humor, subtle pop culture taste, an emotionally gritty musical sense, and extravagant action; A fun-filled animation that comedy and adventure lovers will enjoy watching.
EFE TEKSOY
